PROPOSITIONS is a space for thesis students at Media Design Practices to construct and participate in our own unique critical discourse. We want to use this space to generate and sustain criticality in our design and technology practice at MDP, especially during our thesis year. We also want to have fun doing so and not take ourselves too seriously — design, for us, is rooted in being both critical and playful.

The inspiration for Propositions comes from questions around contemporary design and technology’s orientation toward creating prototypes*. As students in MDP, our points of departure cannot be limited to design and technology’s entanglements with neoliberal hyper-hip startup Silicon Valley culture and companies, nor with solutionism as a default M.O. We want to echo the question:

What if what we put forth as design is the argument—or “proposition”—rather than a conventional prototype?

Propositions is our space to work this shit out.

Our student-run journal is named Propositions—plural—in order to:

consider ideas of multiplicity and plurality in design practices and discourse;

to provoke contemplations and examinations of our realities and futures;

to expose ourselves, make advances, and throw our minds in the gutter.

* The prototype—the tangible step before, a hesitant no-stakes/low-stakes idea. The prototype assumes that the idea has not fully developed and still cannot be taken seriously. When in truth, the prototype solidifies the idea in the “real” space. A very serious endeavor.

↑ Mission statement in inside cover of issue 1.

↑ We ♥ process.

↑ A deliberate non-design of the website. What you see is what you get.